Great start, then takes the wrong path

Rating: 6/10 (25 January 2006)

After a fascinating first 30 minutes or so, The Island goes big when it should have stayed spare.
Like Gattaca (one of my favorite movies), The Island presents us with a future that asks us questions about where we are headed in our real present. And it asks us to decide whether this future is what we want. Unlike Gattaca, which kept the chases to a minimum and instead capitalized on great performances by its actors as their actions gave us new insights, The Island becomes what seems like one, big chase scene broken into several different parts (depending on the vehicle being chased).
We figure out in the first quarter of the movie what is really going on here. That first quarter is very effective at intriguing and disgusting the viewer. Unfortunately, because we know so quickly what is happening, that leaves the next 90 minutes to essentially follow two characters as they are thrust into new and dangerous situations and then escape them. During all of this time, the viewer wonders when the movie will return to some of the central questions raised during its first 45 minutes. It eventually does, sort of.
The acting is excellent, if a bit disconcerting when characters who appear to be at least 30 years of age and some close to 40 seem to be at best young teenagers in the way they struggle to express questions about their environment and future. Even so, the main characters seem to learn about reality a bit too quickly. They act when they should still be asking questions, preferably when they had time to do so and weren't simply running.
And the movie succumbs to cheap impulses when it allows the security people at "The Institute," who know what is going on there, to laugh or taunt their victims. It would have been far creepier if those security forces had remained professional at all times, because that would have indicated these people were sincere in their support and not just paid lackeys.
If The Island had cut out 20 minutes of chases and replaced it with more discussion among the main characters about who they are and whether that is a feasible answer, it would have been better. As it was, we gave The Island a 6.